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I was most anxious to accompany him, and we set out
at once for the Lamonts’ cottage.

Bildy looked frightfully wasted; his face was the
color of parchment, and his brown eyes looked enormously
large and startlingly bright. But what touched
me more than his emaciated appearance was the wonderful
expression of emotion which shone from those large
eyes as we appeared at the bedside; they looked at
Val with the yearning affection that one sees sometimes
in a faithful dog. The poor fellow put out his
white, wasted hand to Val with evident delight.

“Bildy’s been wearyin’ for ye, Father,”
said Robina. “He’s often cried out
for Father Fleming.”

The dying man’s eyes were proof that she spoke
truly.

The short ceremony was soon over, and after some prayers
for the sick man we took our leave. For the
few days that he lingered after that, the visit of
the priest—­twice every day and sometimes
oftener—­was the culminating point of satisfaction
for poor Bildy.

I was there with Val when the end came. Bildy
passed away quite peacefully while we joined in the
prayers for the dying; a calm smile was on his face,
and some vision of delight before his wide-open eyes,
which it is not for mortals to attempt to fathom.

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Val, as we took
our way home; “life has held little of happiness
for him. Indeed, one can hardly call it life
in the full sense of the word; it was mere existence,
as far as we can see.”

“Let’s hope that life has begun for him
at last,” I said reverently.

“I have little doubt of that,” replied
the priest.

VII

SMUGGLERS

“My enemy’s
dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood
that night
Against my fire.”
("King
Lear”—­Act IV, Sc. 7.)

“Aebody kent Davie Forbes wes tarrible at the
smugglin’,” said Willy.

We had been discussing the pros and cons
of illicit distilling—­known inland as “smuggling”—­and
I found that Willy agreed with the general opinion
of the district that the only harm in it was the penalty
due “’gin ye get foond oot by the gauger.”
He assured me that in his young days the practice
was widespread. This had brought us to Davie
Forbes and his persistence in escaping government dues,
and led on to the narrative which I here set down
in intelligible English.

Davie was a fine, hearty specimen of a Scottish crofter,
whose appearance did not tally with his acknowledged
seventy-nine years; for his handsome, ruddy face,
framed by white whiskers, and crowned with abundant,
curly white locks, showed scarcely a wrinkle.
He was stalwart and straight, too, as many a man
twenty years his junior would dearly love to be.

Davie’s wife had been dead many years at the
date of this story; his only daughter, Maggie Jean,
was housekeeper for him and her two unmarried brothers,
Jock and Peter. Like many of his fellows who
might have to support a widowed mother or other helpless
relatives, he had not married until rather late in
life. Consequently, Maggie Jean, the youngest
of the family, was a strapping lass of thirty, and
Jock, the eldest, a “lad” of thirty-six;
for an unmarried man in our neighborhood, be it known,
is a lad till he becomes decrepit!